OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
The effect of novelty on the future impact of scientific grants
Venue: arXiv cs.DL 2019
Year: 2019

Government funding agencies and foundations tend to perceive novelty as necessary for scientific impact and hence prefer to fund novel instead of incremental projects. Evidence linking novelty and the eventual impact of a grant is surprisingly scarce, however. Here, we examine this link by analyzing 920,000 publications funded by 170,000 grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) between 2008 and 2016. We use machine learning to quantify grant novelty at the time of funding and relate that measure to the citation dynamics of these publications. Our results show that grant novelty leads to robust increases in citations while controlling for the principal investigator's grant experience, award amount, year of publication, prestige of the journal, and team size. All else held constant, an article resulting from a fully-novel grant would on average double the citations of a fully-incremental grant. We also find that novel grants produce as many articles as incremental grants while publishing in higher prestige journals. Taken together, our results provide compelling evidence supporting NSF, NIH, and many other funding agencies' emphases on novelty.
Modularity in Query-Based Concept Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

We define and study the problem of modular concept learning, that is, learning a concept that is a cross product of component concepts. If an element's membership in a concept depends solely on it's membership in the components, learning the concept as a whole can be reduced to learning the components. We analyze this problem with respect to different types of oracle interfaces, defining different sets of queries. If a given oracle interface cannot answer questions about the components, learning can be difficult, even when the components are easy to learn with the same type of oracle queries. While learning from superset queries is easy, learning from membership, equivalence, or subset queries is harder. However, we show that these problems become tractable when oracles are given a positive example and are allowed to ask membership queries.
Benchmark for Skill Learning from Demonstration: Impact of User Experience, Task Complexity, and Start Configuration on Performance
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2019
Year: 2019

In this work, we contribute a large-scale study benchmarking the performance of multiple motion-based learning from demonstration approaches. Given the number and diversity of existing methods, it is critical that comprehensive empirical studies be performed comparing the relative strengths of these learning techniques. In particular, we evaluate four different approaches based on properties an end user may desire for real-world tasks. To perform this evaluation, we collected data from nine participants, across four different manipulation tasks with varying starting conditions. The resulting demonstrations were used to train 180 task models and evaluated on 720 task reproductions on a physical robot. Our results detail how i) complexity of the task, ii) the expertise of the human demonstrator, and iii) the starting configuration of the robot affect task performance. The collected dataset of demonstrations, robot executions, and evaluations are being made publicly available. Research insights and guidelines are also provided to guide future research and deployment choices about these approaches.
An Agent-Based Intelligent HCI Information System in Mixed Reality
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2019
Year: 2019

This paper presents a design of agent-based intelligent HCI (iHCI) system using collaborative information for MR to improve user experience and information security based on context-aware computing. In order to implement target awareness system, we propose the use of non-parameter stochastic adaptive learning and a kernel learning strategy for improving the adaptivity of the recognition. The proposed design involves the use of a context-aware computing strategy to recognize patterns for simulating human awareness and processing of stereo pattern analysis. It provides a flexible customization method for scene creation and manipulation. It also enables several types of awareness related to the interactive target, user-experience, system performance, confidentiality, and agent identification by applying several strategies, such as context pattern analysis, scalable learning, data-aware confidential computing.
Accounting for Physics Uncertainty in Ultrasonic Wave Propagation using Deep Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

Ultrasonic guided waves are commonly used to localize structural damage in infrastructures such as buildings, airplanes, bridges. Damage localization can be viewed as an inverse problem. Physical model based techniques are popular for guided wave based damage localization. The performance of these techniques depend on the degree of faithfulness with which the physical model describes wave propagation. External factors such as environmental variations and random noise are a source of uncertainty in wave propagation. The physical modeling of uncertainty in an inverse problem is still a challenging problem. In this work, we propose a deep learning based model for robust damage localization in presence of uncertainty. Wave data with uncertainty is simulated to reflect variations due to external factors and Gaussian noise is added to reflect random noise in the environment. After evaluating the localization error on test data with uncertainty, we observe that the deep learning model trained with uncertainty can learn robust representations. The approach shows potential for dealing with uncertainty in physical science problems using deep learning models.
Performance Bounds and Estimates for Quantized LDPC Decoders
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2019
Year: 2019

The performance of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) is known to be limited by the presence of certain sub-graphs that exist in the Tanner graph representation of the code, for example trapping sets and absorbing sets. This paper derives a lower bound on the frame error rate (FER) of any LDPC code containing a given problematic sub-graph, assuming a particular message passing decoder and decoder quantization. A crucial aspect of the lower bound is that it is code-independent, in the sense that it can be derived based only on a problematic sub-graph and then applied to any code containing it. Due to the complexity of evaluating the exact bound, assumptions are proposed to approximate it, from which we can estimate decoder performance. Simulated results obtained for both the quantized sum-product algorithm (SPA) and the quantized min-sum algorithm (MSA) are shown to be consistent with the approximate bound and the corresponding performance estimates. Different classes of LDPC codes, including both structured and randomly constructed codes, are used to demonstrate the robustness of the approach.
Post-mortem Iris Decomposition and its Dynamics in Morgue Conditions
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2019
Year: 2019

With increasing interest in employing iris biometrics as a forensic tool for identification by investigation authorities, there is a need for a thorough examination and understanding of post-mortem decomposition processes that take place within the human eyeball, especially the iris. This can prove useful for fast and accurate matching of ante-mortem with post-mortem data acquired at crime scenes or mass casualties, as well as for ensuring correct dispatching of bodies from the incident scene to a mortuary or funeral homes. Following these needs of forensic community, this paper offers an analysis of the coarse effects of eyeball decay done from a perspective of automatic iris recognition point of view. Therefore, we analyze post-mortem iris images acquired in both visible light as well as in near-infrared light (860 nm), as the latter wavelength is used in commercial iris recognition systems. Conclusions and suggestions are provided that may aid forensic examiners in successfully utilizing iris patterns in post-mortem identification of deceased subjects. Initial guidelines regarding the imaging process, types of illumination, resolution are also given, together with expectations with respect to the iris features decomposition rates.
Extended Formulation Lower Bounds for Refuting Random CSPs
Venue: arXiv cs.CC 2019
Year: 2019

Random constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) such as random $3$-SAT are conjectured to be computationally intractable. The average case hardness of random $3$-SAT and other CSPs has broad and far-reaching implications on problems in approximation, learning theory and cryptography. In this work, we show subexponential lower bounds on the size of linear programming relaxations for refuting random instances of constraint satisfaction problems. Formally, suppose $P : \{0,1\}^k \to \{0,1\}$ is a predicate that supports a $t-1$-wise uniform distribution on its satisfying assignments. Consider the distribution of random instances of CSP $P$ with $m = Δn$ constraints. We show that any linear programming extended formulation that can refute instances from this distribution with constant probability must have size at least $Ω\left(\exp\left(\left(\frac{n^{t-2}}{Δ^2}\right)^{\frac{1-ν}{k}}\right)\right)$ for all $ν> 0$. For example, this yields a lower bound of size $\exp(n^{1/3})$ for random $3$-SAT with a linear number of clauses. We use the technique of pseudocalibration to directly obtain extended formulation lower bounds from the planted distribution. This approach bypasses the need to construct Sherali-Adams integrality gaps in proving general LP lower bounds. As a corollary, one obtains a self-contained proof of subexponential Sherali-Adams LP lower bounds for these problems. We believe the result sheds light on the technique of pseudocalibration, a promising but conjectural approach to LP/SDP lower bounds.
Polaritonic neuromorphic computing outperforms linear classifiers
Venue: arXiv cs.ET 2019
Year: 2019

Machine learning software applications are nowadays ubiquitous in many fields of science and society for their outstanding capability of solving computationally vast problems like the recognition of patterns and regularities in big datasets. One of the main goals of research is the realization of a physical neural network able to perform data processing in a much faster and energy-efficient way than the state-of-the-art technology. Here we show that lattices of exciton-polariton condensates accomplish neuromorphic computing using fast optical nonlinearities and with lower error rate than any previous hardware implementation. We demonstrate that our neural network significantly increases the recognition efficiency compared to the linear classification algorithms on one of the most widely used benchmarks, the MNIST problem, showing a concrete advantage from the integration of optical systems in reservoir computing architectures.
An automated approach for task evaluation using EEG signals
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

Critical task and cognition-based environments, such as in military and defense operations, aviation user-technology interaction evaluation on UI, understanding intuitiveness of a hardware model or software toolkit, etc. require an assessment of how much a particular task is generating mental workload on a user. This is necessary for understanding how those tasks, operations, and activities can be improvised and made better suited for the users so that they reduce the mental workload on the individual and the operators can use them with ease and less difficulty. However, a particular task can be gauged by a user as simple while for others it may be difficult. Understanding the complexity of a particular task can only be done on user level and we propose to do this by understanding the mental workload (MWL) generated on an operator while performing a task which requires processing a lot of information to get the task done. In this work, we have proposed an experimental setup which replicates modern day workload on doing regular day job tasks. We propose an approach to automatically evaluate the task complexity perceived by an individual by using electroencephalogram (EEG) data of a user during operation. Few crucial steps that are addressed in this work include extraction and optimization of different features and selection of relevant features for dimensionality reduction and using supervised machine learning techniques. In addition to this, performance results of the classifiers are compared using all features and also using only the selected features. From the results, it can be inferred that machine learning algorithms perform better as compared to traditional approaches for mental workload estimation.
Collapse Resistant Deep Convolutional GAN for Multi-Object Image Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

This work introduces a novel system for the generation of images that contain multiple classes of objects. Recent work in Generative Adversarial Networks have produced high quality images, but many focus on generating images of a single object or set of objects. Our system addresses the task of image generation conditioned on a list of desired classes to be included in a single image. This enables our system to generate images with any given combination of objects, all composed into a visually realistic natural image. The system learns the interrelationships of all classes represented in a dataset, and can generate diverse samples including a set of these classes. It displays the ability to arrange these objects together, accounting for occlusions and inter-object spatial relations that characterize complex natural images. To accomplish this, we introduce a novel architecture based on Conditional Deep Convolutional GANs that is stabilized against collapse relative to both mode and condition. The system learns to rectify mode collapse during training, self-correcting to avoid suboptimal generation modes.
A Novel Approach for Partial Fingerprint Identification to Mitigate MasterPrint Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2019
Year: 2019

Partial fingerprint recognition is a method to recognize an individual when the sensor size has a small form factor in accepting a full fingerprint. It is also used in forensic research to identify the partial fingerprints collected from the crime scenes. But the distinguishing features in the partial fingerprint are relatively low due to small fingerprint captured by the sensor. Hence, the uniqueness of a partial fingerprint cannot be guaranteed, leading to a possibility that a single partial fingerprint may identify multiple subjects. A MasterPrint is a partial fingerprint that identifies at least 4% different individuals from the enrolled template database. A fingerprint identification system with such a flaw can play a significant role in convicting an innocent in a criminal case. We propose a partial fingerprint identification approach that aims to mitigate MasterPrint generation. The proposed method, when applied to partial fingerprint dataset cropped from standard FVC 2002 DB1(A) dataset showed significant improvement in reducing the count of MasterPrints. The experimental result demonstrates improved results on other parameters, such as True match Rate (TMR) and Equal Error Rate (EER), generally used to evaluate the performance of a fingerprint biometric system.
The coin that never sleeps. The privacy preserving usage of Bitcoin in a longitudinal analysis as a speculative asset
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2019
Year: 2019

Bitcoin is the first and undoubtedly most successful cryptocurrecny to date with a market capitalization of more than 100 billion dollars. Today, Bitcoin has more than 100,000 supporting merchants and more than 3 million active users. Besides the trust it enjoys among people, Bitcoin lacks of a basic feature a substitute currency must have: stability of value. Hence, although the use of Bitcoin as a mean of payment is relative low, yet the wild ups and downs of its value lure investors to use it as useful asset to yield a trading profit. In this study, we explore this exact nature of Bitcoin aiming to shed light in the newly emerged and rapid growing marketplace of cryptocurencies and compare the investmet landscape and patterns with the most popular traditional stock market of Dow Jones. Our results show that most of Bitcoin addresses are used in the correct fashion to preserve security and privacy of the transactions and that the 24/7 open market of Bitcoin is not affected by any political incidents of the offline world, in contrary with the traditional stock markets. Also, it seems that there are specific longitudes that lead the cryptocurrency in terms of bulk of transactions, but there is not the same correlation with the volume of the coins being transferred.
Revocable Federated Learning: A Benchmark of Federated Forest
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2019
Year: 2019

A learning federation is composed of multiple participants who use the federated learning technique to collaboratively train a machine learning model without directly revealing the local data. Nevertheless, the existing federated learning frameworks have a serious defect that even a participant is revoked, its data are still remembered by the trained model. In a company-level cooperation, allowing the remaining companies to use a trained model that contains the memories from a revoked company is obviously unacceptable, because it can lead to a big conflict of interest. Therefore, we emphatically discuss the participant revocation problem of federated learning and design a revocable federated random forest (RF) framework, RevFRF, to further illustrate the concept of revocable federated learning. In RevFRF, we first define the security problems to be resolved by a revocable federated RF. Then, a suite of homomorphic encryption based secure protocols are designed for federated RF construction, prediction and revocation. Through theoretical analysis and experiments, we show that the protocols can securely and efficiently implement collaborative training of an RF and ensure that the memories of a revoked participant in the trained RF are securely removed.
Dynamic Multi-Task Learning for Face Recognition with Facial Expression
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2019
Year: 2019

Benefiting from the joint learning of the multiple tasks in the deep multi-task networks, many applications have shown the promising performance comparing to single-task learning. However, the performance of multi-task learning framework is highly dependant on the relative weights of the tasks. How to assign the weight of each task is a critical issue in the multi-task learning. Instead of tuning the weights manually which is exhausted and time-consuming, in this paper we propose an approach which can dynamically adapt the weights of the tasks according to the difficulty for training the task. Specifically, the proposed method does not introduce the hyperparameters and the simple structure allows the other multi-task deep learning networks can easily realize or reproduce this method. We demonstrate our approach for face recognition with facial expression and facial expression recognition from a single input image based on a deep multi-task learning Conventional Neural Networks (CNNs). Both the theoretical analysis and the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed dynamic multi-task learning method. This multi-task learning with dynamic weights also boosts of the performance on the different tasks comparing to the state-of-art methods with single-task learning.
Ask to Learn: A Study on Curiosity-driven Question Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2019
Year: 2019

We propose a novel text generation task, namely Curiosity-driven Question Generation. We start from the observation that the Question Generation task has traditionally been considered as the dual problem of Question Answering, hence tackling the problem of generating a question given the text that contains its answer. Such questions can be used to evaluate machine reading comprehension. However, in real life, and especially in conversational settings, humans tend to ask questions with the goal of enriching their knowledge and/or clarifying aspects of previously gathered information. We refer to these inquisitive questions as Curiosity-driven: these questions are generated with the goal of obtaining new information (the answer) which is not present in the input text. In this work, we experiment on this new task using a conversational Question Answering (QA) dataset; further, since the majority of QA dataset are not built in a conversational manner, we describe a methodology to derive data for this novel task from non-conversational QA data. We investigate several automated metrics to measure the different properties of Curious Questions, and experiment different approaches on the Curiosity-driven Question Generation task, including model pre-training and reinforcement learning. Finally, we report a qualitative evaluation of the generated outputs.
AMOEBA: A Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Architecture for Dynamic GPU Scaling
Venue: arXiv cs.AR 2019
Year: 2019

Different GPU applications exhibit varying scalability patterns with network-on-chip (NoC), coalescing, memory and control divergence, and L1 cache behavior. A GPU consists of several StreamingMulti-processors (SMs) that collectively determine how shared resources are partitioned and accessed. Recent years have seen divergent paths in SM scaling towards scale-up (fewer, larger SMs) vs. scale-out (more, smaller SMs). However, neither scaling up nor scaling out can meet the scalability requirement of all applications running on a given GPU system, which inevitably results in performance degradation and resource under-utilization for some applications. In this work, we investigate major design parameters that influence GPU scaling. We then propose AMOEBA, a solution to GPU scaling through reconfigurable SM cores. AMOEBA monitors and predicts application scalability at run-time and adjusts the SM configuration to meet program requirements. AMOEBA also enables dynamic creation of heterogeneous SMs through independent fusing or splitting. AMOEBA is a microarchitecture-based solution and requires no additional programming effort or custom compiler support. Our experimental evaluations with application programs from various benchmark suites indicate that AMOEBA is able to achieve a maximum performance gain of 4.3x, and generates an average performance improvement of 47% when considering all benchmarks tested.
A different take on the best-first game tree pruning algorithms
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2019
Year: 2019

The alpha-beta pruning algorithms have been popular in game tree searching ever since they were discovered. Numerous enhancements are proposed in literature and it is often overwhelming as to which would be the best for implementation. A certain enhancement can take far too long to fine tune its hyper parameters or to decide whether it is going to not make much of a difference due to the memory limitations. On the other hand are the best first pruning techniques, mostly the counterparts of the infamous SSS* algorithm, the algorithm which proved out to be disruptive at the time of its discovery but gradually became outcast as being too memory intensive and having a higher time complexity. Later research doesn't see the best first approaches to be completely different from the depth first based enhancements but both seem to be transitionary in the sense that a best first approach could be looked as a depth first approach with a certain set of enhancements and with the growing power of the computers, SSS* didn't seem to be as taxing on the memory either. Even so, there seems to be quite difficulty in understanding the nature of the SSS* algorithm, why it does what it does and it being termed as being too complex to fathom, visualize and understand on an intellectual level. This article tries to bridge this gap and provide some experimental results comparing the two with the most promising advances.